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Purpose: After Glisson's description of rickets, it took two centuries to realize that rickets was due to the absence of antirachitic nutrients in the diet or lack exposure of the skin to ultraviolet rays. This bone disease caused by vitamin D deficiency was one of the most common diseases of children 100 years ago. This paper explores how the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of rickets shifted in the first decades of the twentieth century., Material and Methods: Although benefits of cod liver oil as food were known as early as the seventh century, cod liver oil was only proposed as medicinal for rickets in Northern Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. The relationship between rickets and nutritional deficiency was suspected and demonstrated between 1880 and 1915, at the same time of the discovery of other vital substances (vitamins) needed to prevent beriberi, scurvy, and pellagra. Understanding that the lack of photosynthesized vitamin D or the lack of dietary vitamin D was a similar risk of rickets was an important turn in the comprehension of the disease. We look at the sequence and turn of events related to the discovery of vitamin D., Results: Rickets has been recognized first as a disease of urban living people. Cod liver oil had been used since 1700 as a nonspecific treatment for a range of diseases. Generations of children in cities of the north of Europe had learned to hate the taste and smell of the black oily liquid and then grown up to be parents who, in turn, hated to force it down their children's throats. Occasional papers before 1900 pointed to its efficacy for rickets, and most textbooks of the early 1900s mentioned it only as a treatment option. The discovery in the early 1900s that artificial and natural ultraviolet rays had both antirachitic activity allowed to produce antirachitic foods just by food irradiation with artificial ultraviolet irradiation. Clinical guidelines were adopted to propose exposure to sunlight or to artificial ultraviolet radiation to prevent rickets in children. By the mid-1920s, rickets was promoted as universal, at times invisible to non-experts, but present to some degree in nearly every young child regardless of race or class. It was thus used to promote the young disciplines of preventive medicine, pediatrics, and public health. Innovative advances were made in the understanding of vitamin D synthesis from 1915 to 1935. A public health campaign of the 1930s was a success to eradicate rickets, using irradiated ergosterol from yeast to enrich milk and other foods with vitamin D, ensuring that the general population was consuming sufficient vitamin D., Conclusion: Rickets therefore provides an excellent window into the early politics of preventive health and the promotion of targeted interventions in the world. It is also a relevant historical counterpoint for current debates over the role of risk factors (absence of light or sun) for disease (today's so-called "lifestyle" diseases).

The use of ultraviolet (UV) light, for the treatment of skin conditions, dates back to the early 1900s. It is well known that sunlight can be of therapeutic value, but it can also lead to deleterious effects such as burning and carcinogenesis. Extensive research has expanded our understanding of UV radiation and its effects in human systems and has led to the development of man-made UV sources that are more precise, safer, and more effective for the treatment of wide variety of dermatologic conditions.

The Wood's lamp aids in the diagnosis of multiple infectious, inflammatory and neoplastic dermatologic conditions. Although the Wood's lamp has many applications, which have improved both the diagnosis and management of disease, the man credited for its invention is relatively unknown in medicine. Robert Williams Wood, a prominent physicist of the early 20th century, is credited for the invention of the Wood's lamp. Wood was the father of infrared and ultraviolet photography and made significant contributions to other areas in optics and spectroscopy. Wood's work encompassed the formative years of American Physics; he published over 200 original papers over his lifetime. A few years after the invention of the Wood's lamp for ultraviolet photography, physicians in Europe adopted the Wood's lamp for dermatologic applications. Wood's lamp remains popular in clinics globally, given its ease of use and ability to improve diagnostic precision., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

This paper depicts the historical evolution of ultraviolet devices in Japan during the interwar period. The outbreak of the First World War spurred the development of the glass industry in Japan, being triggered by the military demand on optical instruments in particular. Meanwhile, physicists needed special glass which could cut off ultraviolet radiation to protect the eyes during spectroscopic experiments. Furthermore, as the effects of the invisible rays on human health came to intrigue the medical and lay audience introduced by the works of Niels Ryberg Finsen, artificial sun lamps for actinotherapy were devised. In Japan, Tokyo Electric (a forerunner of Toshiba) together with the physicist, Nagaoka Hantaro, promoted the development of anti-ultraviolet glass. A national institute based in Osaka chased the project. Eventually, with the advent of knowledge regarding the glass which was practically transparent to ultraviolet rays, the electric company launched a commodity for lay consumers in 1930. The electric device manufacturer produced ultraviolet radiators as a "load builder," during the times when the supply of electricity in Japan exceeded its demand. Ultraviolet radiators, used as tools for hygiene and public welfare as well as for medical treatment, thus trickled onto Japanese soil by the next World War.

This paper traces the emergence of the therapeutic use of sunlight in medicine during the first half of the twentieth century. This was a period of considerable flux in medicine with various strands of practice and theory competing. Drawing on two case studies of sunlight therapy, both artificial (actinotherapy) and natural (heliotherapy), in the treatment of rickets and tuberculosis this paper will explore how medicine was constituted within these regimes. The paper will argue that therapeutic and clinical applications of sunlight helped establish an association between sunlight and health but also defined a particular and specific performance of medicine.

During the inter-war years, the word "radiated" did not only suggest radioactivity, but it was also used to indicate exposure to others radiations, such as ultraviolets. The actinotherapy, a new therapy in vogue, was applied to many pathologies and tried on many substances. "Radiated drugs" result of those experimentations. Their therapeutical characteristics were found during searches on rickets. Our study relates the story of fight against rickets in France, from the use of cod liver oil to the synthesis of Vitamine D.

Rickets, the state of vitamin D deficiency, has reemerged as a potential problem in the United States. At the dawn of the 20th century, rickets was pervasive among infants residing in the polluted cities of Europe and the northeastern United States. Important milestones in the history of rickets were the understanding that photosynthesized vitamin D and dietary vitamin D were similar, the discernment of the antirachitic potency of artificial and natural ultraviolet rays, and the discovery that ultraviolet irradiation could render various foods antirachitic. Clinical guidelines were instituted to promote sensible exposure to sunlight and artificial ultraviolet radiation. In addition, irradiated ergosterol from yeast became the major vitamin D source for food fortification and the treatment of rickets, leading to a public health campaign to eradicate rickets by the 1930s. We review the sequence and turn of events pertaining to the discovery of vitamin D and the strategies for the eradication of the reemerging rickets problem.

Niels Ryberg Finsen who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1903 for introducing phototherapy for lupus vulgaris. He was only the third laureate in medicine, after Emil von Behring (1901) and Ronald Ross (1902), and the first for outstanding achievements in the field of dermatology. Several thousand lupus vulgaris patients from different European countries were treated in the Medical Light Institute in Copenhagen, founded by Finsen, from 1896 until his death in 1904. Until the tuberculostatic drugs were introduced in the middle of the 20th century, the "Finsen Exposure" was the only effective therapy of lupus vulgaris. The carbon arc lamp initially used by Finsen was later modified and then eventually replaced by the mercury quartz lamp developed by Arons. Today Finsen is rightly recognized as the founder of the modern dermatological phototherapy.

The 1920s and 1930s represented an extraordinary time in the shaping of modern attitudes towards ultraviolet light. Dermatologists and other physicians today are still confronting the effects of changes in social behavior that occurred at this time. The discovery that ultraviolet wavelengths played a role in vitamin D synthesis in the skin ushered in a period of enormous popularity for ultraviolet light exposure. A variety of other medical claims were soon made for ultraviolet radiation, including that it increased resistance to disease. The field of phototherapy rapidly expanded, and its use was employed by proponents for a host of unlikely medical conditions. Exposure to sunlight or ultraviolet lamps was widely promoted as a form of preventive medicine. Home sunlamps gained popularity and were aggressively marketed to the public. A suntan, which had previously achieved limited popularity, now was viewed as de rigueur in the United States and Europe. The role that medical advocacy of ultraviolet light exposure played in initially advancing the practice of sunbathing is not commonly appreciated today. Ironically, public health recommendations of the time were often diametrically opposed to those being made at present, since sunlight exposure is currently recognized as the major preventable cause of cancer of the skin.

The medical uses of nonionizing electromagnetic radiation have changed over time with light source technology and research in photobiology. Multiple UV light phototherapy protocols have been developed. A discussion of the relative importance of light sources with respect to the action spectrum for psoriasis phototherapy, as well as the need for tar and other adjuvants, is important to the understanding of a comparison between various regimens. A number of skin conditions other than psoriasis are also responsive to UV light phototherapy.